Lesson 2 – See Where God is At Work and Join Him

Over dinner Tuesday night, I was speaking with Cyrus who was our host for the trip (he is director of Africa for World Help). He was sharing prior to our arrival he had met with the Anglican Church and toured the vocational school that was training women on skills to support their families. I asked if we were visiting the school as I thought that would be an awesome way to encourage women. My radar went up as he started to show me pictures and I saw women sewing handbags.

For better or worse, American women are consumers and most of us like to shop. The results of our Not For Sale “freedom sale” at City Place campus a few years ago validated women are motivated to shop when it directly benefits the lives of other women. Seeing those handbags I knew there was an opportunity to do something with them. I was excited to be able to learn the story behind them.

Cyrus was gracious to get a tour set up and to work with the director of the school as it related to purchasing bags. Due to the fact they are in start up mode, they have not been able to get ahead on inventory so if we wanted bags we needed to order them.

Dinner Wednesday night I felt God say – order 100 and take them back and share the story and give others the opportunity to support these women through a scholarship fund. Cyrus shared some of the women in school, attended Church of the Blessed Mango Tree where we worshipped on Sunday. Pastor Nathan had shared there were many who wanted to go school but needed financial support as most of the women were widows.

We decided to take an order from our team and we ended up with an order of 190 bags! What a great encouragement to these women learning a new skill. They were currently working on a big order and now would have another one right behind it.

I digress for a moment, as this idea to order the bags would not have happened if my debit card had not been restored. When I called my bank the day before we left to flag my credit and debit card with an “out of country” note to ensure they would go through and not get shut down the representative ended up canceling my debit card; my card was wiped out of the system. I was told there was no way to reverse it and I would have to wait until my return back to the states to get a new card. The manager promised to work hard to see if there was a way to reverse it but she wasn’t confident and kept apologizing. As we were leaving for the airport Friday she called to say she thought my card would work so try it when I got to the airport. I tried it and it worked! Since credit card was not a currency taken at the vocational school cash was needed. Thankful that the manager was so diligent. I share this with you as God got the victory this day in the fact I had ability to withdraw enough currency to pay for the 100 bags.

So back to lesson 1 – do what you can do. I love to invite people to join me in helping others. Sharing the handbags and their story is something I can do and do it naturally. Lesson 2 – seeing that God was already at work at the church and the vocational school made it easy for me to join in to support the effort – no need to reinvent the wheel.

You want to know how you can support the women and be a part of sharing their story and I promise you will get that opportunity…. tomorrow! (I also promise if you are reading this and not in WPB I you too can take part in the opportunity.)

In the meantime if you aren’t familiar with Advent Conspiracy click on the link below. http://vimeo.com/30556886. Throughout my posts this week I will be providing in addition to the handbags ways you can support Advent Conspiracy in Rwanda directly touching the lives of those the team and I were blessed to meet.